Last 12th May Cesefor attended the International Conference on Timber Bridges in Biel (Switzerland) and presented the paper entitled ” Structural yield of a pedestrian bridge made of CLT-concrete connected by screws and by notches “. This work was authored by Gonzalo Moltini, Vanesa Baño and Gonzalo Cabrera, who defended it orally in a technical session led by Prof. Roberto Croccetti. The results are part of the doctoral thesis of G. Moltini at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), directed by Vanesa Baño (Cesefor) and Guillermo Íñiguez (UPM).

The work has been developed within the framework of two ongoing research projects in the Wooden Structures Research Group of the Industry and Construction with Wood Area of Cesefor: Interreg Sudoe Eguralt project, financed with ERDF funds, and a regional project financed by the ICE-Junta de Castilla y León through the industrialised wood construction company Medgón.

The objective was to study the influence of two different types of connectors (screws and notches) between cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels and concrete on the design of a wooden pedestrian bridge with a composite wood-concrete deck. For this purpose, experimental values of shear strength and sliding modulus were determined for each CLT-concrete connection type. The structural performance of the composite as a pedestrian bridge deck was compared with that of its use as a floor slab in residential buildings. The results showed that higher values of these properties were achieved with the machined connections than with the bolted connections.”